Samantha has arrived at the old hotel outside Melville, Montana and the Newhope Mine where she has been tricked into going because none of these people can remember that their enemy can fool their minds.
The place is abandoned but she sees "the yellow sedan that Collin said he had rented" and notices the passenger door is open. Looking inside she finds a little girl whose heart has been ripped out and her throat slit because someone couldn't choose between one cliched horror death and another.
Horrified she backs up and takes her gun out only to hear her car starting behind her. This is where we get into old horror flick imagery. The engine guns several times before swinging around to come right at her. She shoots through the window only for it to have no effect and lo and behold, the driver is "the moldering corpse of Mason Raymond" "sitting with a mocking, demonic grin."
Running for safety as the car passes by something grabs her and when she manages to knock it loose she sees the "decayed forearm and hand of the corpse." She makes it to the hotel entrance but doesn't want to go inside figuring at some point the car has to run out of gas when suddenly, a scream from within! And it sounds like Collin! So off to the rescue she goes, gun in hand, following the screams. Thumps and creaks fill the decaying hotel which is rotting awfully fast for a place that has been abandoned for only a month or so.
She gets upstairs and walks down the hall with its "seemingly endless row of gaping doorways" and inexplicable wind, knowing that she will not emerge unchanged from this ordeal of palpable evil. She arrives at a door. "Though she was on the third floor, the number on the door panel appeared to be 666, the number of the devil." p.336 Now I'm imagining a cultist going down to the hardware store and braving the puzzled looks of the employees to order a specially made plaque to nail to the door.
She gets inside and sees a horrible sight. A humanoid, hissing, rotten, fanged monstrosity. She shoots it and runs. Hearing more screaming she runs to another room only to find it empty. There are no more noises and she's convinced Collin is dead which is too bad because she is, in fact, in love with him.
Suddenly, she hears groaning from the closet. Opening it she finds, instead, her long-dead mother, "impaled on a sharp metal pole that had been forced into her body at the anus and ran up the length of her spine". p.338 Her body is "virtually chalk white" and her face was "deep green" and there's blood on her mouth. "Hello, my daughter." And then she projectile vomits blood at Samantha who turns to run in horror only to be confronted by the rotting thing from the other room.
Shooting it has no effect but she suddenly remembers her amulet and her training so she starts to chant a prayer she learned realizing that she actually has not been bothering to keep up the practices she learned because she just figured she was done, I guess. You know, you get your level 3 certification in "African Priestess-hood" and you're protected forever, only occasionally having to do a continuing education webinar to keep your mastery level. However, it turns out you do need to practice it regularly for it to work.
She breaks through the illusions only to be confronted with Mr. G. He's happy with how well she's done and mentions that centuries ago he went through a similar "crucible" to become what he is now. For her, though, they're seasoning her to make her a delicacy for the demon. Weston, a follower who is "a psychopathic killer" as well as a "sexual deviant" has been ordered to make sure she stays in this room. He won't hurt her as long as she stays put. At this point, it's all too much and she pees herself. She's wearing "Levi jeans", of course. All jeans in this book are Levi. "She looked at the Guardian defiantly, but his look conveyed neither derision nor amusement." p.343
Mr. G lets her know that Chris isn't here, wasn't ever here and that Dan is on his way and he's convinced Collin is dead and they aren't sure why because they didn't kill him but some sort of ill-conceived plan seems to be in motion. Then he leaves her alone with Weston.
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